3 elementary schools would merge in Buckeye Valley tax plan

Thursday

Mar 29, 2012 at 12:01 AMMar 29, 2012 at 3:56 AM

RADNOR, Ohio - School officials in the Buckeye Valley School District are capitalizing on the attention elementary schools are receiving in a budget crisis as the district prepares to ask voters to pass another income-tax increase and bond issue. Tonight, Superintendent Jamie Grube presented the board with a plan to tear down not only the previously targeted Buckeye Valley North Elementary School, but also the other two elementary schools in the Delaware County district.

Allison Manning, The Columbus Dispatch

RADNOR, Ohio — School officials in the Buckeye Valley School District are capitalizing on the attention elementary schools are receiving in a budget crisis as the district prepares to ask voters to pass another income-tax increase and bond issue.

Tonight, Superintendent Jamie Grube presented the board with a plan to tear down not only the previously targeted Buckeye Valley North Elementary School, but also the other two elementary schools in the Delaware County district.

If voters pass a joint bond and income-tax issue in August, one new school would serve all 1,300 elementary-school students.

Voters will be asked to approve a 0.25 percent income-tax increase and a roughly $30 million bond issue. If they don’t, North will close this fall.

This would be the district’s second request in less than a year, after a half-percentage-point income-tax increase was soundly rejected last fall.

“We have the attention of the community,” board Vice President Mike Bell said. “We can’t miss that opportunity.”

School officials face a $1.3 million budget hole next year, and last night, they approved a compromise plan of cuts that would include closing North and cutting $200,000 in administration expenses and 17 other positions, for a total of $1.57 million in cuts.

If the tax increase and bond issue are passed in August, North will be quickly reopened for the start of the school year.

“This is a plan of compromise,” Grube said. “It really will come down to a vote on the will of the community.”

Board member Tom Kaelber took issue with the lack of specificity in the position cuts, but other board members said it would be inappropriate to list the positions and the employees who would be gone under the plan approved tonight. Kaelber cast the sole vote against the reduction plan, but the board unanimously approved the first steps to putting the joint tax and bond issue on the ballot.

“I don’t look at this as North, East and West” elementary schools, said board member Rod Boester. “It’s Buckeye Valley.”

Earlier this year, when district officials presented a plan to close North — the oldest elementary school and the most expensive to operate — residents vehemently opposed the plan, calling instead for more cuts in administration.

But tonight, even those who had been adamantly against losing North told board members that they would push for the tax request and one new school.

“I’ve listened. I’ve learned,” said Radnor Township resident David Kessler. “I’m in favor of the one elementary building. Financially, it makes sense.”